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Monday, November 01, 2010

Ch-ch-ch-changes

July marked AtWQ's fifth anniversary, and in a few months I'll be celebrating my 30th birthday, and these two milestones coming within relatively little time of one another meant that 2010 featured a lot of stock-taking and some serious thought about what the next step in my life, personal and professional, was going to be. Which is how I ended up involved with ICon 2010 and the SF Encyclopedia, looking for ways to diversify and mix up my experience of fandom and my role within it. So this summer, when Niall Harrison mentioned that Strange Horizons's editor-in-chief (and freshly-minted World Fantasy Award winner) Susan Marie Groppi was stepping down, and that he was thinking of putting in for the position, I found myself thinking about the soon-to-be-vacant reviews editor job. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the right next step for me to take, and I'm pleased and proud to announce that I've taken it.

In my admittedly biased opinion, Strange Horizons's reviews department is the best in the field, and for breadth of coverage and quality of writing I think it can hold its own alongside some of the best-respected online and print review venues in any genre. I've enjoyed writing for the magazine, but more than that I've enjoyed reading it, discovering books I might never have otherwise read, and opinions that I could nod my head to or argue with. Niall, who I have no doubt will do fantastic work as editor-in-chief, left big shoes to fill, and I'm more than a little nervous about stepping into them. Nervous, but also excited, and hopeful that I can maintain the review department's high quality, and make my own mark on it.

If you're not already reading Strange Horizons's reviews, I hope you'll stop by to take a look (I'm going to start linking to the week's reviews from here every Friday). And remember that the magazine's fund drive still has a week to run. There's a prize raffle for donors, and another one for anyone who mentions the fund drive on their blog, so please consider doing one or the other.

4 comments:

Congratulations. I love SH's fiction, but their reviews section has probably given me much more joy over the long run. It's unlike any other SF reviewing apparatus, and it constantly introduces me to books that I enjoy and, oftentimes, would not have heard about elsewhere. Also, the reviews themselves are frequently somewhat insightful and/or fun to read.